


Blossoms for Demeter

by dendraica



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5273594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dendraica/pseuds/dendraica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco returns to the school for his 7th year - one of the only Slytherins who does. As isolated as he feels, he soon realizes someone else has been alone for much longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blossoms for Demeter

Really, he shouldn’t be here.

The boy thought that every day, walking through familiar and spell-blasted hallways to class. It wasn’t just him; others were practically delighted to tell him he had no right being here either (and not all of them students.) 

Headmistress McGonagall had merely been surprised to see him. She'd had a private meeting with him and his mother, making sure this was his choice and not any pressure from the Ministry. The simple matter was nobody else would allow Draco Malfoy to finish his schooling. Durmstrang had closed its doors to the Malfoy name and no private tutor still left in the United Kingdoms would accept what little money the family had left. 

As it was, Draco could barely afford new robes. It was a blessing he still had all his old school things in his dormitory, including books, cauldron and broomstick. As for his wand, Harry Potter had given McGonagall Draco’s old wand and it was with much relief that he took it back, making a mental note to pen a curt thank you to his former enemy. 

Of course he wasn’t actually planning on it - what could he bloody say? ‘Thanks for giving me back my wand, saving my life and the entire world from my dad’s old boss, sorry I was such a despicable wanker in the interim’. No, Draco would rather avoid everyone as much as possible, despite his mother’s advice to start mending (or building) bridges. He was weary of false friendships and alliances anyway. After Crabbe, he didn’t have the heart for it. 

Draco couldn’t deny his decision was painful though, watching others laughing or talking in tight-knit groups in the hallway. Or sitting together at meals while he ate alone at the end of his nearly empty house table. Very few from Draco’s year had come back, and nobody that would sit with him. 

Ever so often, a few of the first years that had been sorted into his House craned their necks to look over at him - Malfoy, the Death Eater - and then hunkered down in terror if he glanced back. It was juvenile. It was stupid and irritating. It was pathetic and loathsome and worst of all, it was lonely. 

Also it was the reason he’d started taking his meals in the kitchen. The house elves didn’t care who he was; they just knew he was a student and they were ecstatic to have someone there who wasn’t shy about hospitality. Sometimes it was a bit much, going from being ignored to being the center of a hundred eager-to-please eyes, so he didn’t stick around longer than it took to take his meal back to his room. 

His second week back, he considered penning a letter home. It was a letter that would gloss over his misery of course; he didn’t want to worry his mother. But perhaps a reply by owl would cheer him up, especially if she was able to send a box of sweets along with it.

The Owlrey was warm and quiet, full of dark blinking eyes and sleepy calls. Feathers swirled at his feet as he walked across the floor toward a writing bench. He stopped in surprise when he saw a dejected glowing lump in the far corner. 

She was staring out the window, bits of old parchment, Daily Prophet pages and broken quills piled all around her, like a nest. Startled, he said her name out loud.

At the sound of Draco’s voice, Myrtle rose up rigidly, turned around and floated over to him. Then she slapped him, hard. Or would have, had her hand not gone right through his face. 

“HOW COULD YOU!?” she bellowed, trying again and again to hit him. Draco didn’t flinch anymore by the fourth attempt. “I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! NOBODY TOLD ME ANYTHING ALL SUMMER!” And then she burst into loud noisy sobs, sinking down into the floor until owl feathers nearly covered the top of her head. 

Draco didn’t know what to say. So he didn’t say anything and sat down next to her for a while. 

“You’re almost as bad as that stupid Harry Potter,” she said eventually, wetly. “He just buggered off and didn’t say a word either. Too famous for dumb old Myrtle once he got what he wanted.”

“I was tailed all last year by … two of my classmates. They wouldn’t have let me talk to you.” It was true, but a poor excuse. Draco could have shaken them off if it had occurred to him to try. He simply hadn’t thought anyone would miss him or care that he was gone. “I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. 

And suddenly her arms were around him, floating over his shoulders in an embrace. “I didn’t know you were still being bullied. I’m sorry. Are they gone now?”

“Yes. They’re … leaving me alone,” he said, dejectedly not bothering to try and push her off. “I’m alright. You don’t have to wait up here in this drafty old building anymore.” 

“Oh it wasn’t all about you,” Myrtle responded tartly. “I couldn’t deal with the screams anymore. It got rather monotonous after a while, so I just spend all my time crying up here now.

Draco stared at her and then snorted in disbelief. Well, what was suffering and terror to someone who was dead anyway, he reasoned. The worst had already happened to Myrtle, hadn’t it? 

“There aren’t screams anymore,” he told her. “All that’s done with. Come back down and I promise, you’ll get my company more than you probably want it.” 

Myrtle’s squeal and attempted glomp made his ears ring, but Draco smiled anyway. 

* * *

The weeks turned into months. Draco kept his head down and studied, usually taking books and his homework into the lavoratory. Myrtle sprawled out next to him, reading a book he’d levitated; spelled to turn pages at her command. It was good for both of them; she had always loved to read and he needed to practice Charms. 

His grades certainly weren’t suffering as a result and he’d gone from being the black sheep of Slytherin to some bloke who won them points whenever he was called upon in class. He still wasn’t exactly invited to play Quidditch or to study with anyone, but that suited him just fine. 

As much as he’d liked Quidditch when he played, Draco hadn’t gone to any of the House Matches, preferring the blissful quiet of the castle when everyone was out at the pitch. And he hadn’t dared go to Hogsmeade, not without anyone to watch his back.

Instead, he learned almost as much about Myrtle as she learned about him. He told her about simpler times; growing up with orchards, how his mother loved the red apples while he preferred green ones. She’d take a small bite out of his, 'sweetening’ it for him, and he’d do the same for her (even though the red ones were already sweet enough). 

She told him about her Grandmother Rose, the only witch she knew of in her family, who’d died when she was eleven. Her house had flowers all around the window frames, with cobalt blue potion bottles shining on the sill. A broom swept cobwebs from the ceiling all by itself, a cauldron always bubbled over the fire and the dishes washed themselves. The day her Grandmother had died; the whole house had seemed to die with her - everything just stopped. Even the flowers had wilted.

“It was sad. I had always wanted to live in that house when I grew up, and when I got my letter and found out I was a witch, I knew I could make everything grow and move around again. But Mum and Dad had to sell it to afford to send me away to Hogwarts. I cried for months when I found out.”

“That’s terrible. What did she die of?”

“She’d been sick. Some sort of pox. She’d been to the Medi-wizards, but they couldn’t do anything.”

“My grandfather died from the same thing, I think,” Draco said, commiserating with her. “He was sort of fun sometimes. When he wasn’t going off about …” Blood purity, he’d been about to say. “Politics.”

“I wish I had died of the pox,” sighed Myrtle. Draco looked at her in alarm. He barely stopped himself before telling her it was one of the most painful and undignified ways to die for a wizard. She didn’t need to know that about her grandmother.

“Why?” he still couldn’t help but ask.

“I would have at least gotten to say goodbye to everyone. And I wouldn’t be stuck here in the toilets at school. Everything was so sudden and dreadful and I didn’t know where to go. I wanted to stay here because I …” She frowned, thinking hard. “I don’t even remember why. But I can’t leave now.”

Draco wished he knew how to help her. It occurred to him to try and ask the other ghosts, but they were varying degrees of stupidly unhelpful. 

Peeves was right out, as was the Bloody Baron, who just stared at him coldly and declared he wasn’t the one Draco needed to talk to. Nearly Headless Nick only harrumphed and flew off when he got within three feet of him. The Fat Friar was willing to talk but knew very little on the subject. 

It was the Grey Lady who gave him the best advice. 

“There are others who have tried to help our kind. They have been met with varying degrees of success. We are in a state of limbo, on neither side and yet both. The way out is not readily available to us once we choose to stay.”

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was something. Draco spent frustrating hours in the library when he wasn’t studying, trying to find experts on the subject that were still alive. He found one, Melinda Vanquiry. He sent her an owl asking for help. Weeks came and went without a single reply and Draco finally gave up. 

So intent was he on his quest, Draco didn’t even realize there was gong to be a Yule Ball, until Seamus Finnegan shouted to him one day in the hall. 

“Oy, Malfoy!” Draco recognized the best friend of Dean Thomas, who’d spent quite a bit of hellish time in the Malfoy cellar. Oh hell. He kept walking, squaring his shoulders against a hex, in case Finn decided to fling one. Seamus flung only an insult.

“Who are you bringing to the ball? Or are you going to cry yourself to sleep in the dungeon?” 

Laughter, and above that, Granger’s voice admonishing them. “Stop it! There’s no reason to be cruel!”

Oh, she pitied him, how lovely, Draco thought savagely. He really didn’t need this. 

“Malfoy, I’m sorry, just ignore them,” Granger was calling and Merlin, she really pitied him, how dare she of all people pity him - 

Draco ignored her and broke out into a swift walk that turned into a run and he didn’t stop until his feet hit tile. He flung his bag down and all but punched the wall, shaking. He was fine with being alone, nobody could hurt him when he was alone - but he hadn’t known he was such an object of ridicule and pity. He had isolated himself, not the other way around, but that’s not what people were seeing. That got to him. 

This was bollocks. This … was everything he’d earned, wasn’t it? 

“Draco, shhh. It’s alright - ”

“No, no, it’s not!” He sunk down, cursing, until he was sitting on the cold floor. Her equally cold presence sat next to him, always there when he least deserved it. After a long while, he told her what was wrong. "I’m … I’m not nice, you know. I’m not this poor bullied victim who’d never hurt anyone.“ 

"Of course you are,” Myrtle cooed.

“No. I used to be no better than the people who bullied you. For not being a pureblood. For having glasses. You name it, I would have taunted you mercilessly for every single flaw had we been alive at the same time. Instead of cursing Olive Hornby’s name, you would have been cursing mine.” 

Myrtle was silent for a long moment. “Oh,” she squeaked. “But … but you wouldn’t insult me now, right?”

Draco blinked, and looked at his friend. She looked so young and lost and forlorn, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger and biting her lip. Her eyes looked enormous behind her thick spectral glasses and every second he remained silent, they filled more with tears. 

“Of course not,” he breathed, finding relief and comfort that he meant it. 

As fast as the tears had appeared, they were gone and Myrtle smiled in joy. “I didn’t think you would. You’re a lot nicer than you think you are. Everyone else would’ve said yes.”

“Then everyone else is an arsehole,” he sighed, surprised that he meant that too. 

Myrtle laughed, sounding happier than Draco had ever heard her. “You know,” she said, “That ball you mentioned … maybe you should go despite what that Finnegan boy said. I bet you would have fun.” 

“Like hell it’d be fun.” 

“Oh come on, Draco. Even unpopular kids go to dances. I didn’t ever have anyone ask me, but I showed them I wasn’t afraid to go out anyway. I went and I danced and I ate just about every cheese nip in the crisp bowl. Got made fun of, but it was better than staying in my dorm room feeling sorry for myself.” 

There was a slight tremble in Myrtle’s voice when she said that last part, but she raised her chin up defiantly. “I just didn’t let anyone tell me I didn’t deserve to be there.” 

Something about the way she’d said that resonated in his chest. And then he got an idea. “I don’t suppose you’d like to go?”

She blinked, stared at him and then huffed. “Are you joking?”

“What? No, I’m serious. You should come with me.”

“I died in my school robes. I’ll look horrendous on your arm,” she argued, flustered. 

“Then I’ll wear my best school robes. My dress robes are so out of fashion it would be stupid to try and wear those anyway. Also, a gentleman never out-dresses his date.”

Myrtle just stared. “Your date? I think you’ve gone barking mad. Who asks a ghost out to a dance, let alone a sodding formal ball?” 

“Someone who’s done caring about what others think. You’re the only one who’s even talked to me, so I can’t think of anyone better to ask. Are you coming then?”

She grinned widely before nodding, though Draco couldn’t help but notice her eyes looked a little sad. 

“Funny. I should have known I’d have to die before I got asked out by anyone.” 

* * * 

Draco felt nervous as he donned his school robes and generally made himself as presentable as he always did. His dormitory was quiet and empty and as he looked at himself in the mirror, he debated calling the whole thing off and just staying in the library. 

On second thought, that was a terrible loathsome idea and he scowled at himself for considering it. “You’re not a coward. You don’t need to hide. Finnegan can suckle on a garden gnome’s -”

“You look a little pale, dear,” the mirror interrupted hastily. “Perhaps eat something. And are you sure you want to wear that to the Yule Ball?”

The day that Draco Malfoy allowed himself to be browbeaten by a mirror was the day that Slughorn showed an ounce of humility. 

“I look impeccable every day. There’s no need to dress up,” he said, with a loftiness he didn’t quite feel. The important thing was he sounded convincing. 

The mirror clucked once, then went quiet and allowed him to check his school robes from all angles, then pin a bunch of white star-shaped flowers to his breast pocket. 

Myrtle was waiting for him at the top of the dungeon stairs. She’d gotten the Grey Lady’s help braiding and putting up her hair, and nervously picked at the robes she had died in. “I look awful, don’t I?”

“No more awful than I do. And I look rather dashing, I think.” 

The ghost giggled and then drew in a breath when she saw the corsage Draco had for her. Her face fell immediately. “I suppose you forgot I can’t wear that.”

“Just wait a moment, I didn’t forget.” Draco levitated it and muttered a spell. The star shaped flowers and green leaves broke off from the corsage and floated up to circle her wrist, glowing softly. He tossed the remains into a bin. 

Myrtle was beaming with delight. “What are these? I’m glad they’re not roses, whatever they are. I hate roses.” 

“It’s myrtle,” Draco said. “In proper literature, it means love and it’s favored by both Demeter and Aphrodite."

She stared at him for a long moment. “I never knew my name was so pretty. Myrtle Elizabeth Warren, it was. I remember now, I always thought it was ugly, the way people at school said it.” 

“Well so there, your name’s beautiful, despite whatever those tossers said.” He held out his arm and she took it, careful not to jostle her floating corsage. 

Several people who saw them on the way stopped whatever they were doing and stared after them. Draco kept his face neutral and Myrtle was too busy staring happily either at him or the flowers around her wrist to notice them. She did notice Finnegan however when he burst out laughing and pointed at them at the entrance to the dance. 

Myrtle flipped a very rude gesture at him and it was Draco who barely contained his mirth at the gob-smacked look on Seamus’ face. He held that image in his mind as they walked through the doors.

There was a slight pause in conversation, but not the hush he’d been dreading. Draco had been to far too many parties in his lifetime where one was greeted with cold silence upon their entrance. He sighed in relief and noticed Myrtle looking rather uneasy. 

“I was expecting more laughter,” she explained. “And I planned everything I’d say to it.” 

“Don’t plan. If you don’t like what someone has to say to you, pretend they don’t exist. That gets under their skin a lot more."

She nodded and as the night wore on, Draco guided her through the dances she’d never learned. All she had to do was float and keep her hands where he’d indicated. Draco wasn’t a bad dancer, having done this all his life. It was easy to keep rhythm when your partner didn’t have feet to worry about. 

By the time the musicians needed a break, Myrtle was beaming, faintly glowing like the enchanted flowers on her wrist. “Draco,” she said fondly, as they headed back toward their table. “I’m really going to miss you.”

“Miss me?” 

“It’s your last year, isn’t it? I’ll be stuck here, and you’ll be somewhere else. You’re the nicest boy I’ve ever met, but I don’t think there’ll be any others who would take me to a dance like this.” 

He frowned, remembering he’d never heard back from the witch he’d owled. What Myrtle said was true, no matter how he tried to look at it or argue in his head. He was about to try and promise her that he would find a way, but Myrtle just smiled and did her best to hug him. 

“If I were alive, would you have still taken me to the ball?”

Draco was quiet a moment, then he decided to answer as truthfully as possible. 

“The person I was wouldn’t have. The person I am now? You’ve stuck with me through some of the worst bits of my life. So yeah, I would’ve, don’t you think so?”

Myrtle ducked her head, looking shy. “You’ll remember me when you leave, won’t you? You won’t forget me ever?”

“How could I possibly? Don’t be ridiculous; if somebody loves you, then they’ll never forget you. You’re the only real friend I’ve ever had.” 

It was more of a gentle rebuke than a loving confession, but Myrtle’s eyes widened suddenly. Draco’s teasing smile turned into a concerned frown. “Myrtle? You’re glowing.” 

And she was - really glowing, like a small nebula. Tendrils of soft light rose from her body, like beams of morning sunlight. Heads began to turn in their direction, murmuring. 

Draco didn’t give a toss about any of it as her mouth moved, saying something inaudible. “A-Are you alright? Myrtle?” he asked, starting to panic. 

McGonagall’s hand was on his shoulder. “Draco, dear …”

Draco ducked away from it and closer to his friend, straining to hear what she was saying.

“I can hear them,” she said, and now her voice weirdly echoed through the room, containing a heavier and more ethereal tone than it had before. Her eyes focused and they had a color - a rich brown that suddenly locked with Draco’s pale silver ones. 

“I can hear my family.”

Draco’s mouth went dry and his heart raced, but he swallowed the sudden wild urge to tell her she shouldn’t go, that she couldn’t leave. He had to be the world’s biggest idiot for feeling this way; had he not been trying all year to help her? 

Draco forced himself to smile at her. “Then what are you waiting for? Go to them." 

Myrtle floated down, and touched his face. He could taste the warmth of the other side, he could see that her hair had once been mouse brown and feel that her skin had been chapped and calloused before she had died. She smelled like sunwarmed books and clove ointment. It only made her more precious to him. He didn’t want her to go.

"Thank you. I won’t forget you,” she promised and Draco was embarrassed to feel tears escape his eyes as she started to fade. He should be happy for her, not sad for himself. That reasoning did nothing for the pain in his chest.

Soon the light overpowered her features and for a moment the outline of her body remained, suspended in the air like the silhouette of a galaxy. It too vanished from sight. 

There was a long moment of silence, then everyone began to talk at once. Draco didn’t want to deal with it; he couldn’t care less about their opinions or thoughts or their stupid questions. McGonagall’s hand was back on his shoulder, steering him away. 

He let himself be ushered - weary, upset, and once again feeling very alone.

* * *

“I feel like I’ve killed her,” Draco said to his cup of tea. It didn’t respond, just sitting there in his hands and quietly dissolving a lump of sugar. “I know she was already dead. But just the way she went … I wasn’t ready for it. Was she?"

“She’s been ready for decades, Mr. Malfoy. Nobody else could have done what you did,” Minerva told him, pouring tea for herself. She gestured to the biscuits on the table - shortbread and butter - but Draco shook his head, miserable. 

“I almost asked her to stay . . . Selfish, don't you think?"

“But you didn’t. That’s the important thing,” Minerva offered. She sipped her tea and set her cup down in its saucer. “I assure you, Draco, you are certainly not a selfish young man, not after what I’ve seen tonight. Now, as for classes, I can excuse you for a week until you feel you can resume. Your grades are certainly good enough to afford it.”

“Classes I don’t mind. It’s the idiots I have to take them with that bother me." 

Her soft chuckle threw him off. "There are already quite a few rumors going around. You’ve won the sympathy of a great number of students tonight.” 

“What? Why?”

“Oh, some may think you both were in love -”

Draco nearly dropped his tea. “No!” he all but shouted, though he could see it all too clearly. The poor lonely Slytherin and his ghostly girlfriend. Ugh, it made him want to throw curses at everything. “She was only bloody fourteen!”

“And some of the more sensible students can see that you dearly cared for a friend and that losing her - even to her own happy ending - is painful for you. And perhaps if they approach you … you might not hex off their ears?”

“I make no promises,” Draco muttered darkly. Then, sighing deeply, he looked up at McGonagall. “I will attempt to make some form of human contact. But I’m still going to miss her.” 

“Of course. You will always miss her, even though you understand she’s with the people who she has missed and loved and forgotten the most. The love you showed in your friendship reminded her of them and opened a door that had been closed for her.”

Draco looked up sharply at the voice that had spoken. It had not been McGonagall. A tall golden-eyed woman dressed in dark brown wool walked over to take a seat with them. She and Minerva exchanged polite nods. 

The woman was handsome, with dark skin and wild curly hair held back with a saphhire band. It played around her shoulders like a mane. 

Draco recognized her face from a portrait in a book. 

“Why in Merlin’s name did you not write back?” he demanded. “I could have used your help!”

“I wanted to see what you’d do on your own,” Melinda Vanquiry said calmly. “You already had a relationship with the young woman. A friendly one,” she added, holding up a hand at Draco’s protest. “That’s how the process starts. It would have been impossible to put what you were supposed to do in words. So I wrote to your Headmistress. She invited me to attend the Ball and to stay for a few days after. I wanted to talk to you in person. I didn’t expect to see you succeed so quickly.”

"It doesn’t feel like anything to celebrate,” Draco replied bitterly. “I didn’t do much of anything. It was her remembering things, wasn’t it? I mean, it’s not like I performed a spell or anything.”

"There are no spells or rituals to make a ghost cross over. Left long enough in limbo, ghost sometimes forget who they are and why they didn’t move on. They cannot see the door any longer. But you were on the right track all along, as it turned out."

Draco nodded hesitantly.

“You helped a decades old ghost,” she continued. “Who nobody else could help and who was miserable here. You reunited her with her family. All because you cared for her and saw her as a person. This is why I want you to be my apprentice. The last few I’ve taken on saw ghosts only as spectral mistakes that needed correcting. Ghosts aren’t just jobs to finish.

“All you really need is compassion and empathy, and very occasionally coins for the ferryman. It’s a hard job in the sense that you get attached and then you have to let them go. But you are aware of this already.” 

“Yeah.” He swallowed hard. “Look, I don’t know if I can do this again.” 

“If someone like Myrtle needed you to help her, would you try?”

Oh, that was an unfair question, but Draco already knew the answer. “Yes. I would,” he sighed.

Vanquiry smiled gently at him and held out a hand to shake. “I will be here as I said for a couple more days. Talk to me if you like. Then owl me whenever you need to, about anything at all. I promise, I’ll answer promptly this time. 

"Alright …” Draco warily took the woman’s offered hand. His dark mark was out in view and he grimaced, pulling his hand away after they’d shaken. Melinda’s face was indifferent. “You don’t mind employing an ex-Death Eater?” he couldn’t help asking. 

“Long as you don’t mind working for a half-werewolf,” Melinda shrugged. She grinned at Draco’s shocked expression. “I don’t fully transform. You’ll be safe. However I was blessed with an excellent sense of smell and I cook a mean rack of lamb.”

Draco liked her already. Maybe knowing Myrtle had simply changed him for the better. “I don't. Blood purity is so last year.”

Melinda threw back her head and laughed.


End file.
